A Busy Day.    I took Roxie to the vet for her dentistry work at 7AM.   Then I came home and sorted mail and papers until it was time to to to Mother's house at 10AM.

Jeff came today also.   A John Swart came to talk to Mother, Jeff and me about the "incident" in 1958 when the United States Air Force bombed us.   John got interested when a cousin of his told him that he had two casings from the incident that John's uncle had found in the cow yard the day after the shooting.   He had kept them all these years and then called John as the cousin had no one to pass them on to.   John has decided to donate them to local museums but needed to document the events to go along with the items.    Mother Jeff and I are thinking that it would be a good idea to donate the model plane and model shell that the Air Force gave to Dad too.

I wrote up my memories of the day and sent them to John for his writeup.  He gave us copies of the newspaper articles etc that he has.   Quite a day.

Here is my writeup.

March 17, 1958

It was March 17^th 1958. The evening of my Grandfather's funeral. I had actually forgotten that those events were connected. We lived at 127 Pinehurst Court, in Sheboygan Falls WI.

We were all home, Mom and Dad, Nora, Tim, Jeff, Dolores, Eileen, George, Matthew, and Randy and me. Also there was a guest. My current boyfriend, James (Jumbo) Martin, who was by the way a Golden Globes champion had joined us for dinner.

We had finished the meal Everybody was just kind of milling around as we always did, Visiting with Jumbo was pleasant and the younger children were playing in small groups downstairs. Usually at that time some of the younger children would go upstairs to play with their toys but with Jumbo there and because of the funeral, they were all hanging around downstairs.

At some point, Tim went upstairs. He wasn't up there long when we heard a huge crash. Mother's first thought was that he had knocked down some huge wardrobe or something. We ran upstairs and there was Tim at the end of the hall staring open mouthed into the bedroom on the left as plaster dust and debris came pouring out of the door.

We all joined him at the door talking like crazy, of course. Tim, totally innocent, was as confused as we were. As the dust settled, we realized that there was a hole in the ceiling of the bedroom and gradually we could see a gouge in the linoleum that was the flooring in the bedroom. Somebody, kind of followed the path and found under one of the beds was a HUGE BULLET.

At this point, Mom and Dad called the police. They arrived quickly, and were as confused as we all were. Dad handed the shell to the policeman and he handled it as nonchalantly as we had been, took a report and left with the shell.

By the next morning, we were informed and heard that at least one more home, I don't remember if there were more, were hit. Recently, I found that two more homes were hit and shells were found in several places. One of the shells did explode, in a closet. Most didn't. My memory is that one shell landed next to a crib where a two year old baby was sleeping.

Later we found out that some of the shells were armed and it was a blessing that they didn't explode and cause more damage and/or human casualties or injury Also there was no explanation as to why none of the planes who had been out over Lake Michigan reported anything unusual or why the shells did not explode on contact. And then we remembered the handling of the loaded shell by the police AND Dad.

One day, when , a limousine with several high ranking officers from the the Air Force came to the house to personally apologize for the incident. They asked for an estimate of the damage and when that was presented, they sent a check to Mom and Dad. Later, the liaison from Milwaukee presented a model of the plane that did the firing and a dud of the bullet for us.

There was a picture in the paper of people pointing to the hole in the bedroom ceiling.

I know that Mom and Dad were paid for the estimate to repair the hole in the roof. The shell came through the roof, penetrated and went through a beam in the ceiling and landed on the bedroom floor skipping almost like skipping stones gauging the linoleum as it hit and landed under one of the beds. Dad had a friend repair the damage and bought a new television with the check.

Memories of that night by Mary Deeley Kunert, eldest daughter of Francis and Mary Deeley .

4/23/2013

After he left the three of us ate lunch.  Kathy sent the greatest sandwiches, salad and pumpkin pie for us.

I picked up Rosie after lunch and came home.   Have been finishing getting caught up, washing, and sewing and now am really ready for bed.    Tomorrow should be pretty quiet.   I need to get ready for the weekend.

Dia Dhuit

Mary